RH compared the Lambda with the Theta Data Basic in March 1994 (Vol.17 No.3):
A natural point of comparison for the Theta Data Basic was the similarly priced PS Audio Lambda transport. The auditioning was restricted to coaxial and AES/EBU.
I wondered just how similar—or different—the Data Basic would sound compared with the nearly identical Lambda. In my review of the Lambda last October, I concluded that it offered terrific performance for the money. From the listening, it was clear that the Lambda and Data Basic resembled each other in their musical presentations yet were…
Two letters from readers (see below) started us thinking again about something we've mulled at, off and on, for the past year or so: Does today's high-fidelity equipment, for all its vastly improved performance, actually sound that much better than the best of the early components?
Certainly, the best of today's pickups, amplifiers and loudspeakers are objectively far superior to anything available ten, or even five years ago. Pickups trace more cleanly at lower forces, amplifiers have lower distortion and higher stability, and speakers have wider range, smoother response and lower…
Sidebar 3: Specifications
Description: CD transport with one coaxial (RCA jack) output as standard. Optional outputs: AT&T ST-type optical and AES/EBU (each adds $200; both are available for an extra $400).
Dimensions: 17" W by 3.25" D by 15" H.
Price: $1695 (1993); no longer available (2015). Approximate number of dealers: 125. Warranty: 3 years parts and labor (electronics), 1 year parts and labor (drive mechanism and laser).
Manufacturer: PS Audio, Grover City, CA 93483 (1993); PS Audio, 4826 Sterling Drive, Boulder, CO 80301 (2015). Tel: (720) 406-8946. Web: www.…
Command Performance AV (115 Park Avenue, Suite 2, Falls Church, VA 22046) is holding a Clearaudio event on Saturday December 12 from noon–5pm. Clearaudio founder, Peter Suchy, will be demonstrating the one-of-kind Clearaudio Statement turntable (right) along with the Goldfinger Cartridge and Absolute Phono. This will be the first showing of the new Statement turntable on the East Coast. To highlight the capabilities of the Statement, Garth Leerer and Jesse Luna of Musical Surroundings will be demonstrating the brand-new Eclipse versions of the Aesthetix electronics.
Another thing, after astonishingly high musicianship around every corner, that New Orleans has is record stores, none better nor better run than Euclid Records in the Bywater neighborhood. The second location of a store based in St Louis, NOLA’s Euclid has an entire first floor of LPs, a performance space for in-store concerts and an upstairs filled with 45s. Stereophile contributing editor John Swenson and I had the good fortune to stumble upon an LP collection the store had purchased and put out in the “new arrivals” section. While he scored a sealed copy of Tony Williams Foreign Intrigue…
Despite Katrina, which forced a lot of musicians out of town permanently, New Orleans still has a core of great musicians. On a Thursday night out at Chickie Wah Wah on Canal Street, we found Ed Volker, keyboardist from The Radiators fronting a band that contained guitarist Camile Baudoin also from the Rads, baritone saxophone player Joe Cabral from The Iguanas and drummer Michael Skinkus. Without any rehearsal they came on and within two songs had the groove and never let go. As Mac (Dr. John) has been known to exclaim in song, “Such A Night!”
In their seminal work on the subject of audio "Bluff your Way in Hi-Fi" (1987), Sue Hudson and John Crabbe stated that "the perfect speaker would have no mass and no dimensions. The perfect speaker does not exist, and if it did, it still wouldn't." One might add, as a corollary, that a speaker with zero dimensions would also have infinite cost. At least there seems to be a trend in that direction. The Wilson WATT and Celestion SL700—to use today's two most visible examples—may have attracted considerable attention because of their exceptional performance, but they have also attracted at least…
At last I arrived at a sound I felt represented the Panorama at its best in my room, and with my system—though to misquote a famous seer, there are always other possibilities. First, to the good stuff. Set up optimally, the Panoramas live up to their name in producing as focused and precise a soundstage as I have ever heard. Lateral definition was spot-on. Depth was nearly as good, though a bit short of the near-holographic quality of the left-to-right placement. On Rickie Lee Jones's "The Moon is Made of Gold" from Rob Wasserman's Duets (MCA 42131), the solo voice and guitar popped up at…
Sidebar 1: Review System
Associated equipment used for this review included the SOTA Cosmos turntable and SME V tonearm, Krell KC-100, Clearaudio Gamma, and Benz-Micro MC-3 cartridges, California Audio Labs Aria II CD player, Klyne SK-5a preamplifier, and Mark Levinson No.23, Forté 1a, and VTL 90/90 power amplifiers.
Interconnects were the Monster M-1000 (CD to preamp) and AudioQuest Lapis (early version) (preamp to power amp). Speaker cables were AudioQuest Green (bass) and Green Hyperlitz (treble) (bi-wire mode) and Monster M-1 (intermittently, single wire mode).
Before…
Sidebar 2: Measurements
Though SOTA specifies the Panorama as being an 8-ohm load, the speaker can be seen from fig.1 actually to drop somewhat lower than that, reaching a minimum value of 5.1 ohms at 135Hz and averaging 4.4 ohms in the top octave. This should not present amplifiers with problems unless, like the B&K ST-140, they have problems driving loads much below 8 ohms. That the damped slot on the speaker's base does not act as a reflex port can be shown by the fact that the impedance in the bass features the single peak typical of a sealed-box alignment.
…
